Urban Legends

The Legend

An army recruit, depressed and facing disciplinary action because he showed his platoon a pornographic film that turned out to be a "dear John I'm sleeping with everyone" message from his wife back home, was assigned to buff all the floors of the camp hospital. He has a terrible time struggling with the huge machine, and finally decides he's had enough. Either the floor buffer goes, or he goes.

Then the thought strikes him, he can get rid of himself and the buffer at the same time. After making his way to the hospital's top floor with the hated machine, the recruit ties its cord around his neck. He balances the buffer on the ledge of a window and jumps out, intending the jerk on the cord caused by the snapping of his neck to pull the buffer out the window, after which it will fall upon his motionless body like something from a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

Unfortunately (in a sense) for him, the industrial floor buffer had a 150-food cord, and the window from which the recruit jumped was only 100 feet off the ground. He was killed instantly, but the buffer survived.

In a final bit of irony, maintenance men were lifting the buffer off of the windowsill when they heard about the recruit's mistake. The story made them laugh so hard that they dropped the buffer, breaking it.